Abstract

The book examines the rehabilitation over the past two decades of Bishop Nikolaj Velimirovic (1881-1956), the controversial Serbian Orthodox Christian philosopher who, having been vilified by the former Yugoslav Communist authorities as a traitor, antisemite and a fascist, has come to be regarded in Serbian society as a saintly figure and the most important religious persona since medieval times. The book, written fifty years after Velimirović’s death, charts his posthumous passage from ‘traitor’ to ‘saint’ and examines the complementary dynamics of repression and denial which were used to divert public attention from the controversies surrounding Velimirovic’s life (most important of which is his antisemitism) and which enabled favourable representations to penetrate the public sphere and come to dominate memorial discourse. Also, the book presents the first detailed examination of the way in which an Eastern Orthodox Church manages controversy surrounding the presence of anti-Semitism within its ranks and considers the implications of the continuing reverence of Nikolaj Velimirovic for the persistence of antisemitism in Serbian Orthodox culture and Serbian society as a whole. The study is based on a detailed examination of the changing representations of Bishop Velimirovic in the Serbian media and in commemorative discourse, as well as interviews with a number of prominent public figures who have been actively involved in the bishop’s rehabilitation over the past two decades.